


More Than Pennies on Pavement

by cassieoh



Series: And After [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Boarding School, Crowley Loves Kids (Good Omens), Gen, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Lonely Warlock, at his core, crowley is able to put aside his own issues for kids, for a bit at least, hes just had the weirdest upbringing ever, warlock dowling is a good kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 16:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20100298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassieoh/pseuds/cassieoh
Summary: Warlock Dowling is a fundamentally lonely boy. He always has been, but before his birthday it was okay because he had Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis and they were weird but they were his weird. Now he has neither and he's been sent off to boarding school and, well, he's really very lonely.(Crowley might have his own issues he's working through, but if there's one thing that always been true about the angel who became a demon through asking too many questions it is this; Crowley has never in the entirety of his existence been able to disappoint a child when he had the capability of doing otherwise. Never.)(you don't need to read the rest of the series to follow)





	More Than Pennies on Pavement

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place between chapters 10 and 11 of "For Want of a Seed" and is intended to explain Adam and Warlock's relationship at the time of "The Right of It". No knowledge of either story is required, though Crowley might make more sense if you've read "For Want of a Seed".
> 
> (Note: I am going with the interpretation that Crowley is using he/him pronouns again post apocaloops. However, there is a discussion about that in this chapter from Warlock's POV where Warlock uses she/her at first. As always, I am 100% willing to fix any error I have made in these sorts of discussions, please just let me know!!)

**Wellington Boarding School for Boys | Colgate, UK | Two Months After**

There were very few truths that Warlock Dowling could claim were universal in his experience. The first was that politicians, each and every one, were untrustworthy assholes who did not deserve one’s time or energy. He included his father in this evaluation. There were only so many missed football matches a young boy could forgive after all. Thaddeus never improved and over the years both Warlock and the gulf between father and son grew rapidly. 

The second truth was that almost no one was going to listen to a single word he said. It was almost miraculous really, he could throw a fit, yell, scream, cuss- none of it seemed to matter. When he was younger, the fact bothered him. He desperately wanted his mother to listen as he told her about the slugs Brother Francis showed him. He wanted his father to pay attention as he tried to work out the wording on a practice essay for end of year testing. But, as he approached his teen years he realized that the way his words slid off others was a benefit. He could say what he wanted when he wanted and no one cared.

It was freedom. 

The final truth was this; his parents might not like him, but that was okay because he had Nanny and Nanny liked him just fine. 

Except, that truth was maybe not as universal as young Warlock liked to think it was.

Nanny left.

She departed from the Dowling household the day before Warlock turned eleven. He didn’t even notice. He had been nervous about the party, afraid his mother had booked lame entertainment and the children of his father’s coworkers wouldn’t like him anymore. He tried to keep Nanny’s words in mind; it should not matter what they think of you, they are but dust in the wind that lifts you to your rightful place as ruler of this little world[1].

Warlock did not realize that the day she left was meant to be his last time seeing her. In fact, he did not know until after they returned from their trip to the Middle East, when he asked his father when Nanny was coming back from vacation and learned that she had been let go because he was ‘too old for that namby-pamby nonsense’. 

It was devastating. 

He left the house immediately, running for the gardens with the wild abandon only a distraught child can quite manage. Brother Francis said it was okay to cry and Warlock wasn’t sure that was quite right, but just then he wanted desperately to sob and he wanted someone to tell him it was going to be okay. Brother Francis was pretty good at that. 

Except.

Except, Brother Francis was gone too. 

Warlock spent that entire afternoon curled up in the garden shed, ignoring the world and crying himself to exhaustion atop a bag of potting soil. 

Eventually, he drug himself inside to his bed where he collapsed in an ungainly heap in the mounds of pillows and blankets that Nanny told him were only appropriate for the little King on Earth. The room was quiet. He could faintly hear his father’s snores from a few rooms down and the sounds of the kitchen staff bustling about. 

But there was no noise in his room aside from his breathing. 

He wanted Nanny to sing him a song. 

He loved her voice. It was lower than his mom’s, raspy and warm and full of the promise that everything was going to be okay. Before his birthday he couldn’t remember a single night when he hadn’t fallen asleep to her singing. 

The tears were back. He pulled his legs up, curling into a little ball. The news had said the world was going crazy, there were aliens and fish falling from the sky and Atlantis and, here in the dark and the quiet, Warlock was scared. 

He wanted his Nanny. 

* * *

Months later, he sat at the edge of the football pitch, watching some of his new classmates kick the ball around with their visiting siblings and parents. No one was coming to see him. His mother was accompanying his father on some big important diplomatic thing and promised to come next time. It was what she’d said for the last three family days. 

Suddenly, someone dressed all in black settled onto the bench beside him. Warlock looked up and gasped. 

“Nanny Ashtoreth!” He launched himself into a hug, wrapping his arms around Nanny’s slim frame without hesitation. Her arms came up and gripped him tightly for a moment before pulling back. Warlock took a few seconds to wipe his eyes as subtly as he could before looking at her again. Nanny looked different. Her hair had been cropped close to her head on the sides with a wild nest left longer on top. She wasn’t wearing her customary skirt and blouse. Even her sunglasses were different. 

A sudden thought occurred to Warlock. Nanny wasn’t employed by his family anymore. She might not even be a nanny, or, and the thought made him feel vaguely ill, she might have another kid she cared for. 

And she was dressed so differently than normal. She opened her mouth to say something, but Warlock cut her off before she could speak.

“Can I,” Warlock looked at the ground as he spoke, nervous for reasons he could not define. He’d never been nervous around Nanny before. “Can I still call you Nanny?” 

“What?” He looked up. Nanny’s voice was very, very quiet. 

“I won’t if you don’t want me to!” Warlock promised, “I know my dad fired you and I totally get if you’re mad. If you want me to call you something else I will!” He was suddenly terrified he’d said something wrong and now Nanny wouldn’t come back and he’d be alone again. 

Nanny stood from the bench and knelt before him. 

“Warlock-”

“I’m sorry!” Warlock stood as well. “Please don’t leave!” 

Nanny’s face was twisted into an expression he’d never seen on it before. 

“You can call me whatever you want, dear.” Warlock really did not like the tone in her voice, it was low and almost sad, tangled up in a way he couldn’t parse. He thought for a minute. Nanny was dressed differently than ever before. She always looked fancy in a very British way according to his mother. He loved her stern skirts and the little flashes of red she wore when she wanted to make him smile. She had a seemingly infinite collection of collar pins depicting snakes that he delighted in giving posh names. Sir Archibald Worthington Picknet III, a tightly coiled viper in brilliant green, was his personal favorite. 

But now- now she was wearing pants. He’d never seen her in pants before. Beside him were slim pants and shoes without heels and a suit jacket that did not have any sort of embellishment he could see, none of the lace or frills Nanny had seemed to secretly enjoy. 

Nanny had _never _worn pants. 

When Warlock was eight, Nanny had taught him about people who chose their own names. He’d been bullied that day at school for his name and come home crying about how he hated it and wished for a normal name, one like John or James or Kelly. Nanny explained that, if he really wanted, she would call him any of those names and when he was old enough she would help him get it legally changed. She said people changed their names for all kinds of reasons, because they did not like their given name or they wanted something different or they got married or they realized that it wasn’t who they were. She said that sometimes people changed more than just their name, sometimes people changed how they looked or dressed or the words other people used to refer to them or maybe all of those things. They’d needed to pause for a brief grammar lesson at that point because he did not quite understand what a pronoun was, but Nanny was a patient teacher and he loved learning from her. 

He looked back at Nanny, in pants and flat shoes and short hair. 

“What do you want me to call you?” he asked. That had been a very important part of that conversation, he remembered, always do what people wanted you to when it came to their name or the words you used to refer to them. People were going to follow him into battle one day, Nanny had said sternly, but you can’t be a good leader if you don’t respect your troops. 

Nanny’s face softened. 

“I go by Crowley these days.”

“Crowley?” Warlock tried the name out. It was unusual, but no more so than _Warlock. _He smiled. 

“Hello, Crowley,” he said. 

“Hello, Warlock,” Crowley said, “I’ve also been using the same pronouns you do.”

“Okay,” Warlock nodded fiercely. He loved Na-Crowley and he would never do anything to hurt him. Warlock did not care what Crowley dressed like, if she did her make-up or he wore slim cut trousers, or what name he chose to use. All Warlock cared about what that Crowley was here, he was here and he didn’t have to be and Warlock loved him. 

“But,” and now Crowley leaned in as if sharing a great secret, “I might not always use that name or those pronouns. I like them right now, but in a few years? Who knows really. And, can I tell you something else?” 

Warlock nodded. 

“You can still call me Nanny if you want.” 

“Really?” 

Crowley nodded. “Nanny is a title, not a name. It doesn’t say anything about who I am as a person except the meaning you give it. I’d be honored to still be your Nanny.” Warlock wasn’t quite sure what any of that meant. 

“Are you sure?” 

Nanny stood from the ground and sat back on the bench beside Warlock. He reached over and pulled the boy into a side hug, pressing him to his side the same way Nanny had after his infrequent nightmares. 

“I am one hundred percent sure. Now, why aren’t you out there showing them why you’re the best team captain they could hope for?” 

Being a leader was a big part of Nanny’s lessons. Warlock winced. 

“They don’t like me much,” he said. “And, well, they have parents and stuff here and I don’t.” 

“Well, that’s just dumb,” Nanny said, “You have me and I’m better than any stock broker or whatever silly job they think is important.” 

Warlock laughed. Branson had been bragging that his dad was a stockbroker that morning over breakfast. 

“Now, how about we go over there and you practice being a little mini-Hannibal, yeah?” 

“Okay.” Warlock still wasn’t sure, but Nanny would be there and she’d never let him be hurt. 

He spent the entire afternoon playing football with the other kids, shouting out plans and ideas and, to his wonder, they _listened_. Nanny shouted his encouragement from the sidelines, earning odd looks from the other visitors, but appearing to ignore them entirely. 

When finally, exhausted and sweaty, the children decided it was time to stop, Nanny clicked his fingers and Warlock found he didn’t smell anymore. It was an old trick from when he was small and still hated baths. He laughed and grabbed his hand. 

“Come on! There’s a library here that makes dad’s look like total shit, You’ll love it[2]!” 

* * *

As the afternoon slipped towards evening, Warlock found himself growing tired. It was unusual, he hadn’t been so much as drowsy the entire time he’d been at school. Or, really, he hadn’t been tired since Nanny left and he stopped being tucked in the way he liked. 

Nanny seemed to notice his attention drifting from the collected tales of Genghis Khan and looked up from the book, a smile curling the corners of his lips. 

“Are you ready to sleep?” He asked. 

Warlock shook his head. He did not want to go to bed because that would mean visitor’s day was over and Nanny would leave and Warlock really did not want to go back to being alone. He hadn’t even properly realized how lonely he was until Nanny was there. 

Nanny’s smile grew. “Excellent,” he said, “I have a tube of superglue and some coins that happened to fall out of your Headmaster’s pocket, shall we?” 

Warlock stared. For all that he was encouraged to make trouble and strife, Nanny had never so overtly asked if he wanted to cause mischief. His face, devoid of the makeup Warlock was used to seeing, was far more open and cheerful than it had ever been before. One eyebrow was arched up over the edge of the large sunglasses in question. 

“What do we do with superglue and stolen money?” Warlock asked. 

“Oh, it’s a classic,” Nanny stood and tossed the book behind him where it hit a bookshelf and fell to the ground with a resounding thump. “Come on.” Warlock hopped to his feet, his previous exhaustion banished by Nanny’s open eagerness. 

“Now, the first time I did this was in Rome,” Nanny said as they exited the library. 

Warlock had never been to Rome, his parents had three times, but those were always work trips and children were not welcome on work trips. He desperately wanted to see the ruins of the Forum, to walk around something that old and picture all the tales Nanny had told him happening around him. He wanted to stand where the Caesars stood and imagine people listened to him the way they listened to them. 

“Not modern Rome, mind you,” Nanny continued, “Proper Rome, Old Rome. See, I was there on a little Temptation for the company I used to work for and this absolute wanker kept bumping into me. So, I follow him around and figure out he owes a few people quite a bit of money. Then, when he’s asleep I take some sestertii and go around attaching them to every surface I could find on his walk to work. He went mad trying to get the coins up for the next few weeks.” 

Warlock, having never knowing a life without Nanny’s odd tales, did not think it was strange for him to be talking as if ancient Roman coins were still used in the modern day or about Old Rome as if he’d been there. What Warlock found odd was the genuinely pleased tone in Nanny’s voice. It wasn’t that Nanny had always been sad or anything, more that even a child as isolated as Warlock could tell there was something bothering the person he loved more than any other. Whatever that something was, he thought, it was clearly gone now.

“So we’re going to superglue coins to the ground?” He asked. 

Nanny’s grin turned a little sinister. “We’re going to superglue a lot of coins to the ground,” he said. 

And so they did. 

They spent the next few hours gluing coins to as many surfaces as they could reach[3].Finally, when Warlock was swaying on his feet, Nanny paused in his quest to climb the statue of Beauford H Wellington, the schools founder, to replace his eyes with gold coins. 

“Are you ready to sleep?” he asked. 

Warlock wanted to say no again, he really did. But, he also really wanted to curl up under his covers and listen to Nanny sing again. Nanny seemed to sense this, because he pat Warlock on the shoulders and said; 

“It’s alright, Warlock. Humans need to sleep,” his voice was low and kind, “Let’s get you upstairs, hmm?” 

“But, I don’t want you to leave.” Warlock bit back a wince of embarrassment. Nanny always said that weakness was not something that good leaders tolerated or displayed. “I mean, uh-”

The hand on his shoulder shifted from a light pat to a grip that reeled Warlock in to Nanny’s side. Warlock leaned into the cool embrace, Nanny was always cool. It was comforting to feel, so much about Nanny was different, but this was the same as always. 

“It’s alright to want me to stay,” Nanny said as they climbed the stairs. Warlock’s exhausted feet tried to trip on the steps, but Nanny did not allow him to falter. “You’re allowed to want things, dearest.” 

Warlock sniffed. Nanny only rarely called him any sort of pet name, but he treasured the moments when she did. He knew most boys his age hated that stuff, but, well, Nanny had said not to measure himself by what most boys were doing. It hit him all of a sudden. All of the uncertainty and loneliness and fear that Nanny left because of him. He screwed up his face, trying valiantly to stop the tears that wanted to burst forth. 

“Come now,” Nanny said. Warlock looked up and found they were standing in his bedroom and he had no memory at all of the door opening. Nanny led him over to the rumpled bed and sat down, pulling Warlock along with him. 

“Now, what’s all this about?” Nanny said. 

Warlock’s throat worked, a sob trying to tear itself from his chest. “I-” he said and then paused, unwilling to allow his words to be marred by tears. He took a few deep breaths, leaning heavily against Nanny’s side. “Did you leave because of me?” That wasn’t what he meant to ask, not even close. But, it was what he wanted to know and he’d never lied to Nanny before. 

Nanny was silent for a long time. The tears Warlock had been trying to hold back came, hot and wet and absolutely miserable. He hated crying, hated looking weak. His father said men shouldn’t cry, his mother said it was silly to cry when he could act. Warlock was not thinking of them just then, however, he was thinking that Nanny had not yet responded. Maybe he really was mad, maybe he hated Warlock for turning eleven and getting him fired. Maybe-

“Never,” Nanny said and there was something of a hiss about his voice, “Never. There is nothing you could have done to make me leave.” 

“But my dad said-”

“Your father is a bigot, an idiot, and a fool.” 

That brought a smile to Warlock’s face even as the tears refused to stop. “Fool and idiot are the same thing, Nanny.” 

Nanny’s arm around him tightened. 

“So they are, and yet your father is a big enough nincompoop that he requires both of them.” 

Warlock giggled. No one except Nanny had ever said negative things about his father around him. 

“Then why did you go?” 

Nanny sighed.

“Ah, this is not an easy thing to say, Warlock,” he said. 

“It’s okay, Nanny,” Warlock hurried to say. He wanted to know why, no, more than that, he needed it. “I promise I won’t tell anyone or anything.”

Nanny waved one hand dismissively, “Oh, no one would believe you if you tried. No, it’s hard because it makes me look like a bigger fool than your father and I dislike being compared to that man.” 

“But, you’re nothing like him,” Warlock protested, “Or mom. You, you’re,” he struggled to put into words what Nanny was. Finally he settled on, “You’re you. And, you like me. They don’t so you can’t be like them.” The grip on his shoulders tightened again. 

“It’s an odd tale,” Nanny said, “It begins the night you were born. I was working for some pretty nasty people back then and I’d just been told to go to a small country hospital outside of Tadfield.” 

“The hospital I was born at?” Warlock asked. He felt Nanny nod. 

“Yes,” he said, “You and two other boys. Or, you and one other human boy. I was, erg, bringing the third.” 

“From where?” This wasn’t like any of the bedtime stories Warlock was used to, but he sensed it was the most important one he’d ever hear. 

“From his father, my boss,” Nanny paused and took a deep breath before continuing, “The devil.” 

Suddenly, hundreds, thousands, of little oddities leapt out in Warlock’s memories. Toys that moved by themselves, bullies who tripped over their suddenly untied shoelaces, parents who never got mad about the ruined vase in the front parlor, and so many more. 

“You,” he paused to swallow, “You’re a devil?” 

Nanny laughed, “No, not at all,” he said. “I am a demon though. Not a particularly important one in the grand scheme of things, but I do alright.” 

“Why did you become my nanny?” Warlock’s mind was whirling, his exhaustion forgotten. 

“Like I said,” Nanny said, “I was meant to bring my master’s child, the antichrist, to the hospital and switch them with a normal human baby. Below, er, Hell that is, wanted the AntiChrist to be raised by powerful people so he would be well situated to end the world.” 

Suddenly it all coalesced into clear logic in Warlock’s mind, every oddity about his childhood, the fact that his father was an important diplomat, the tales of destruction and strife that Nanny told him, the strange trip to the Middle East when the world seemed to be falling apart around them during the summer. 

“I’m the AntiChrist,” he whispered. 

“Ah, no.” Nanny actually let go of him and stood. 

“What? But-”

He watched as Nanny scraped his hands through his hair and down his face. He started pacing. 

“I fucked it up,” he said, “I was meant to switch the babies but I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want the apocalypse to start you see so I was in a hurry to get back to my er, my friend and get really very drunk. So, I let the nuns take care of the switch.” 

He paused in his pacing to look Warlock in the eyes. 

“I want you to understand, Warlock, that this next bit does nothing to change how I feel about you.”

“Okay,” Warlock drug the word out, nervous for what would come next. 

“You are not the AntiChrist,” Nanny said firmly, “Your birth parents are from the village of Tadfield. The nuns screwed up, I screwed up, and the AntiChrist ended up with your birth parents and you ended up with the Dowlings.” 

A wave of relief swept through Warlock. Strangely, it was not directed at the news that he was not, in fact, the Devil’s son, it was because-

“They’re not my parents,” he whispered. 

“What?” Nanny asked.

“The Dowlings. They aren’t my mom and dad, it doesn’t matter that they don’t love me because they aren’t meant to.” 

“Oh, Warlock, no.” Nanny collapsed into the chair across from his bed, his long legs sprawled out before him and his shoulders slumped. “You aren’t mine either and I love you very much.” It was the first time Nanny had ever said those words aloud to Warlock and his heart swelled in his chest. “They are supposed to love you biological, adopted, whatever, no matter what. Besides, they don’t-” Nanny cut himself off with an inarticulate sound. 

“What?” Warlock asked. They he realized what Nanny had been about to say, “Oh, they don’t know I’m not theirs.” Another thought occurred to him then. “And neither did you, know that I mean. You didn’t know I wasn’t the AntiChrist, which is why you-” He trailed off, the desire to cry was back. “You left after my birthday because you realized I wasn’t him, didn’t you?” 

Nanny’s face was ragged, twisted into something terrible and sad that Warlock hated to see, no matter how hurt he might be. 

“Yes,” Nanny said, “But, not because of what you’re thinking.” 

“Then why?” 

Nanny sighed, “We, Brother Francis is also involved in all this, though he prefers to go by Aziraphale- We were trying to stop the end of the world. We thought that if we both helped raise you I could influence you towards evil and he could influence you towards good.” 

“He’s a demon too?” 

That startled a laugh from Nanny. “Oh he’s going to love that. No, he’s an angel, white wings, halo and all.” 

Warlock was quite ready to believe in demons with one sitting in front of him, but angels seemed like a bit much. He decided to reserve judgement until later on that one. 

“So you thought you could make me just like normal, not evil and not good?” 

“Yes!” Nanny beamed at him, “You brilliant boy, the idea was that if you weren’t one or the other then when the time came you wouldn’t want to end it all.” 

“But I wasn’t the right one?” 

“No.” Nanny stood from the chair and moved across the space between them to kneel in front of Warlock. He took his hands and held them tightly, “The only reason I left was because we needed to try and save the world and that meant doing things as Crowley, not Nanny Ashtoreth. And,” he paused and looked away, “Well, Hell is not a nice place, Warlock. I worried that since I was about to defy them, if they knew I cared for you they might use you against me or Aziraphale.” 

“You left to protect me?” 

Nanny smiled at him, “Yes, to protect you and to try and save the world and it worked. We saved the world and Adam, that’s the actual AntiChrist, told Heaven and Hell to fuck off and I’m free. We’re free. I can visit you again and not worry about my bosses checking in and putting you in danger.” 

“Really?” 

“Really.” Nanny studied his face, “Now, I know this is a lot and it's very late, so how about you get under the covers and I promise to tell you the whole story next visitor’s day?” 

“But I’m not in my nightclothes.” Warlock protested without really thinking about it. His mind was whirling because ‘next visitor’s day’ meant Nanny planned to return. 

“Oh that’s easy,” Nanny said. His smile had shifted from kind back towards the one he wore while they were attaching coins to every surface that they could find. He lifted his left hand and snapped and suddenly Warlock was in nightclothes he’d never seen before, his hair was soft and clean and he was tucked under the covers. 

“Just a little miracle before I go,” Nanny smiled down at him. “Now, go to sleep.” He stood and turned away, starting towards the door. 

“Wait!” Warlock sat up, reaching towards him. 

Nanny turned back, the eyebrow raised once more, “Yes?” 

“Could you, I mean if you don’t mind, could you maybe sing me a song before you go?” 

The eyebrow vanished back behind the sunglasses. Nanny turned to fully face him. 

“Of course, my little king.” He said, “I will sing to you anytime you want me to, forever.” 

He reached out, pulling the covers back into place, and sat down in the chair once more. 

Warlock drifted off to sleep with the sounds of his Nanny’s singing voice, low and raspy and so familiar, wrapped around him.

He slept through the entire night and awoke fully rested for the first time since his parents dropped him off two months previously. 

* * *

Nanny came back the next visitor’s day, and then the next, and then the one after that. And on and on. Until finally, one day Warlock stopped being surprised. They whiled away the hours in easy conversation. Nanny told him stories about days long gone and, after Warlock asked one too many times, drug Brother Francis along with him. Warlock enjoyed watching them together, it was amazing to see Nanny truly happy, his entire being oriented towards the angel like a sunflower turning to the light. Warlock, who had liked Brother Francis alright, found he genuinely enjoyed Aziraphale who told the best stories about his adventures in the years he and Crowley were on opposite sides of things. The angel did not join Nanny for all his visits, but Warlock saw him once every few months. 

In the summers, when Warlock was back in London with the Dowlings, Nanny appeared to drag him away for adventures around the city. Some days they walked along the streets all day and Nanny showed him how to ‘annoy people for fun and profit’, other days they spent hours in museums as Nanny told him about the real stories behind the artifacts. Warlock loved those days the best. He never tired of learned about the vast history held by a single clay tablet. Besides, it was fun to find out just how much the museums got wrong[4]

Suddenly, in less than the time it took to glue a coin to a staircase, eight years of monthly visits for tea and cakes and companionship passed with barely a note and Warlock found himself once more leaving home. 

He knew without a shred of doubt that this time it was for good. He had no plans to ever live with the Dowlings again. 

So, he found a little flat close to campus and used the money he’d been saving from years of petty scams with Nanny to pay for an entire year up front. And it was his. All his own. He adored it, tattered wallpaper and unreliable light switches and all. 

One weekend when Nanny visited, he confided that he had no idea how to decorate the flat. The Dowling residence had always been in the height of traditional fashion and he did not want that. He wanted whatever the opposite of that was. Nanny grinned, a wild grin that spoke of offending one's elders, and they spent an entire afternoon in a local second hand shop picking the most hideous furniture they could find. Soon, his flat was decorated with clashing tartans in chartreuse and olive and a particular shade of orange that was only produced in 1973 and coordinated with exactly nothing. He had one wingback chair, a lumpy loveseat, and a footstool that could sleep three in a pinch. He loved all of them dearly and, when his parents made a rare visit, he was delighted to discover that they hated every single item in the flat. It was freeing and wonderful and he went out and bought a leopard print throw for his bed. 

Then, the term began and Warlock’s world changed again because the AntiChrist himself was in Warlock’s Introduction to Political Science paper. 

He blamed Nanny, he thought as he looked at the face of the boy his parents were meant to have raised. Of course the damn demon knew about this, he probably arranged it. Which was against Warlock’s explicit request that neither angel nor demon interfere in things around him without telling him about it. There was nothing for it, he knew, he would just have to keep his head down and try to pass the paper without drawing attention to himself. Then, the professor decided that they should all introduce themselves and Warlock knew that the AntiChrist (whose name was Adam, what a goddamn cliché) knew who he was as well. 

He scooped up his books and darted towards the door as soon as the lecture ended, hoping to make it out before-

“Hullo there,” the AntiChrist said, “I’m Adam.” Warlock turned to face him, attempting to keep his scowl in place, “I think he have some mutual friends?” 

“Yeah,” Warlock muttered, “We _had_ some mutual friends. I’m gonna kill that fucking demon.”

The AntiC- _Adam_ laughed, it was the pleasant sort of laugh that Warlock had never quite managed. 

“Would you like to get some lunch?” Adam asked.

Warlock rolled his eyes, “Fine,” he muttered, “We might as well.”

“Great!” Adam beamed at him. “I know this great little cafe just off High Street.”

“Yay,” Warlock muttered. However, he did not hesitate to follow the other teen. 

Nanny was gonna get an earful the next time he saw him.

* * *

**Footnotes:**

1Brother Francis’ words, to remember that if they were mean it was because they were scared too and he should smile at them and love them just the same, seemed like good advice as well. But, he was eleven and loving everyone seemed like a pretty tall order.[return to text]

2Nanny Ashtoreth had, to her chagrin, been obliged to affect a love of the written word to explain her vast knowledge of history.[return to text]

3And quite a few that Warlock would only realize much later, should have been impossible to reach.[return to text]

4Though, he was not convinced that Nanny was actually right all the time. There was just enough hesitation to some of the stories that Warlock though he was just trying to be impressive.[return to text]


End file.
